Tue, Feb 10, 2004 page6

• Sudan's hidden war claims toll on human lives

  • REUTERS
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  The drone of the bomber's engines grew louder, sending Sudanese rebels hurrying between the mud houses below.

  "Don't run -- hide!" ordered one of the guerrillas, and his comrades crouched behind boulders in a seemingly futile attempt to escape from the aircraft circling overhead.

  A low whistling sound heralded the payload of bombs which smashed into an abandoned hut across the street. A pall of black smoke billowed into the sky and a feeling of relief coursed through onlookers spared from the blast.

  The raid on the Sudanese side of the Chad-Sudan border town of Tine on Jan. 26 was a rare glimpse into the kind of attacks that aid workers say have forced tens of thousands of refugees to flee villages across western Sudan in recent months.

  Women and children trekking across the frontier into Chad bring tales of similar bombings by Sudanese government planes and attacks by horse-riding "Janjaweed" militia, who they say are sent by the government to burn their villages.

  Few outsiders reach the areas to check the accounts, but a visit to Tine yields evidence that Sudan's government has launched an offensive against rebels in the west of the country in which civilians are paying a heavy price.

  The government has blamed the refugees on rebels, but witnesses speak only of raids by Sudan's armed forces.

  "We don't even know why we're being bombed," said Ibrahim Daoud, 36, lying with a shrapnel wound in his thigh in a hospital tent on the Chadian side of the border, along with about 20 other Sudanese men, some with legs amputated.

  Beyond the human toll, the diplomatic implications of the violence may reach all the way to Washington.

  The US has pressured Sudan to work towards ending a separate, 20-year-old civil war with rebels in the south, hoping to rebuild ties with a country it lists as a "state sponsor of terror" and which once hosted Osama bin Laden.

  The International Crisis Group think tank warns that the attacks in the west could undermine any peace deal for south Sudan and has urged the US to lean on Khartoum to stop its raids and start negotiations.

  Rebels said in early February they would attend talks with the government in Geneva to allow aid distribution in Sudan's western Darfur region, although it is unclear whether the negotiations will lead to progress towards a durable ceasefire.

  On the border at Tine, which lies about 1,000km east of Chad's capital, N'Djamena, talk of peace feels a long way from the reality of a town overshadowed by war.

  Fear of government bombs has turned the Sudanese side into a ghost town. In the Chadian half, donkeys pick their way between ramshackle buildings and men wander past in white robes in scenes that have changed little since antiquity.

  Despite its timeless feel, Tine's Chadian section has suffered one of its biggest shocks in years with the arrival of thousands of refugees, some of the 100,000 Sudanese who began pouring across a 600km stretch of the border in March.

  "The army comes, then the Janjaweed, then the bombing," said a man named Abdallah. "They can destroy any village."
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